Sarah Mercer
Mr. Ervin
AP Language and Composition
10 December 2012
EugenicsToday’s society is filled with contrasting ideologies and mindsets, some more controversial than others. The field of medical ethics consists of many debatable issues that remain irresolute and continue to provoke opposing deliberation. Among these subjects is the practice of eugenics. Eugenics is essentially a science with the stated aim of “improving the genetic constitution of the human species through selective breeding.” (Kevles 253) Although its methods propose ways to target and eliminate specific undesired or burdening traits from the human gene pool, eugenics should be discouraged because it defies society’s established moral standards, arouses social issues, and challenges genetic diversity.

The moral values that societies set in place in order to maintain the most efficient means of interaction among its people are essential in the prosperity and manageability of the population. Ideas that challenge or denounce these values put the well-being of society at risk. The theological aspects of eugenics contradict the basis of ethical standards in the United States. Due to its concern with competitive fertility, this method of genetic engineering can be argued as the antithesis of reproductive freedom. Competitive fertility introduces the method of sterilization, which is the act of making an individual infertile. Although it is unfavorable by over half of the geneticists in the United States, countries such as China and India have come close to requiring mandatory sterilization by law. (Wertz 503) The fact that this concept has the ability to inspire such favorability of an act that revokes the reproductive rights of those deemed “unfit” to reproduce is baffling. How can a human being feel content in supporting a cause that holds such immoral notions? Granting scientific judgment the power to label individuals genetically fit or unfit is allowing them to cross...

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...Eugenics is a social movement that reached its peak in the 20th C, however, proponents still exist today.
(1) Define eugenics in your own words.
It is not difficult to decipher the meaning of the word eugenics if a person gives it some thought. There are three parts to the word: eu gene ics. The first part of the word means “good,” and a person does not have to study Latin to know this, but it helps. If we know that Euthanasia is the “good death” or that Europe means “good land,” then we can figure it out. Of course, the second part of the word means “genes,” and any good student of biology knows that “genes” are the codes found in the alleles that determine particular traits such as hair color, skin color, and other factors that affect the way that a creature or being will be manifest when fully grown or mature. And finally “ics” means the study of or the practice of something. In fact, we actually see the core of the word in practice itself. For example, the practice of aerobics would mean the practice of exercising the body vigorously, and so on. Thus, eugenics would mean that it is the study of or the practice of “good genes.” This is the literal definition of the word, and it is the denotation of the word—the way that the word can be broken down and analyzed for what it literally means.
(2) A negative connotation surrounds eugenics. Explain if eugenics can be...

.... INTRODUCTION TO EUGENICS
A.​Definition of Eugenics.
a. A science that deals with the improvement (as by control of human mating) of hereditary qualities of a race or breed.
​b. Ways in which eugenics can take place.
B.​Support for eugenics.
​a. What are the arguments for eugenics?
​b. Who are some prominent figures who have supported Eugenics?
C. Arguments against eugenics.
​a. What is inhumane about eugenics?
​b. Deprives individuals of natural rights
c. What is genetic diversity? Why is it relevant to the discussion of eugenics?
​d. Possibility of misuses of eugenics.
. HISTORY OF EUGENICS
A. Where did eugenics originate?
B. Other Countries with a history of eugenics.
​a. Eugenics that went on in Nazi Germany.
​b. Eugenics that took place in Japan.
C. The history of eugenics in the United States.
. EUGENICS TODAY
A. Factual ways in which eugenics is seen today.
B. Theories regarding ways in which eugenics can be seen today.
. MY CONCLUSIONS
. What I have come to conclude about the morality of eugenics.
. Why I have come to this conclusion.
​Many people in the United States today have no idea of what...

...The Eugenics Movement
During the 1920’s, science and social legislation came to be intertwined, and the study of human genetic variation was born; this was known as the term eugenics. Eugenics is the improvement of a species by emphasizing the characteristics that are beneficial. Positive eugenics it is the act of improving a species by emphasizing the propagation of those traits that are seen as beneficial. NegativeEugenics is the act of improving the species by preventing the spread of those traits that are seen as dysgenic or harmful.
Scientists elucidated on subjects they knew little about, as they used the “objectivity of science” to validate their drawn up conclusions, which resulted in continuous fallacies and common errors based on this way of thinking. Eugenics represented an embarrassing time in American history as after it’s abandonment at the end of WWII, the negative light associated with the study of human genetics stunted legitimate research for decades.
The first step taken to implement this practice was to identify those who possessed dysgenic traits. Feeblemindedness was a term to describe those who possessed any mental defect whether behavioral or social. Traits or afflictions that were viewed as feebleminded were retardation, insanity, alcoholism, promiscuity, and many others. The second step was to implement and execute strategies to prevent those dysgenic...

...﻿Eugenics of Darwinism
In 1883, shortly after the abolishment of slavery, Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin, expanded on Darwin’s theories of evolution to create a concept he called Eugenics. Eugenics is the thought that genetics and race determine intelligence, social behavior, disease, poverty and other things including characteristics such as feeble-mindedness. This belief would be used to exterminate masses of people throughout history. Many social elite around the globe accept this belief as truth and supported it whole-heartedly by funding much of the research and practices or by coming to the defense of those whom decided to use Eugenics to justify their horrific actions.
The documentary “Racism a History” produced by BBC details a history leading up to the development of Eugenics and then the use of Eugenics to justify the elimination and population control of several groups of people deemed by believers of the concept to be expendable in order to preserve the fittest race. “Survival of the fittest.”
In 1803 the British settled in Tasmania, Australia. The indigenous people of Tasmania were the aboriginal tribe. The settlers would kill an aboriginal any time they came across one. However, a missionary named George Augustus Robertson was hired to capture the indigenous people and try to civilize them according to the norm of British society instead of killing...

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Future Eugenics
The topic I choose to cover for the Future of Eugenics is Pre-Implantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD). PGD is and will be used in the future of Eugenics to create almost the “fittest” or perfect baby before they are even born. The structure of DNA was discovered in the 1950s, and since then several of genes has been identified as well as genetic disorders, which lead us to PGD. “Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis is a technique used to identify genetic defects in embryos created through in vitro fertilization (IVF) before pregnancy” (Dayal 1).
The creation of PGD was developed first by Edwards and Gardner, who successfully performed the first known embryo on rabbit embryos in 1968 (Dayal 1). “In Humans, PGD was developed in the United Kingdom in the mid 1980s as an alternative to current prenatal diagnoses” (Dayal 1). PGD was first reported in 1990. Since then over 15,000 PGD cycles have been reported since 2006 and are available for most known genetic mutation, but the technique still remains fairly new (Dayal 1). PGD is recommended for couples that are at risk of transmitting a known genetic abnormality to their children. “Only healthy and normal embryos are transferred into the mother’s uterus, thus diminishing the risk of inheriting a genetic abnormality and late pregnancy termination” (Dayal 2). Indications or primary candidates for PGD include chromosomal disorders, gender determination for severe X-linked...

...History of Eugenics: How those in Power shape Society’s Perfect Human.
Eugenics, the study of hereditary traits with the aim of producing an ideal human, and “on a societal level, programs that control human reproduction with the intent of changing the genetic structureof the population”, (Lewis, 299) are not a new concept. The history of eugenics reaches as far back as 400 B.C., and extends to dates as recent as 1994. From Athens to Sparta, United States to Germany and China, the quest to improve the human race has spanned the world. ‘Improve’, however, is a highly subjective term.
Who decides what an ideal human looks like? And what are the appropriate ways to build a race of such people? The answers to these questions have changed throughout the centuries. People considered ‘ideal’ by the eugenics program in one culture would be scheduled to be euthanized as ‘undesirable’ in another culture a few centuries later. Upon reviewing the history of eugenics, it becomes apparent that the section of a society in power at a particular time in history, usually seeks to eliminate those least like themselves, in order to impose not only their values, but their very phenotype on society at large.
The first written accounts of eugenics reach back to 386 B.C. In his work “The Republic”, a description and plan for an Utopia, or ‘ideal society’, the Athenian philosopher Plato is said to...

...Eugenics and Deaf People In Nazi Germany
By: Kristy Holseberg
What is Eugenics? “Eugenics is currently defined as the "applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population”- Wikipedia. Eugenicists, at the end of the 19th century and start of the 20th, believed disabled people and other socially undesirable groups, such as vagrants and 'moral defectives', would weaken the gene pool of the nation. What is the history of eugenics movement? How did this movement affect the lives of deaf people in Nazi Germany? What is happening with eugenics today?
Modern eugenics was rooted in the social Darwinism of the late 19th century. Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin coined the word eugenics. Galton believed in improving the human race by getting rid of the “undesirables” and multiplying the “desirables. Although eugenics programs are usually associated with Nazi Germany, they could, and did, happen everywhere. They focused on manipulating heredity or breeding to produce better people and on eliminating those considered biologically inferior. In the 1920s and 1930s eugenic sterilization laws were passed in 24 of the American states. Eugenics was criticized increasingly between the wars and was attacked widely when its role in the holocaust was...

...EugenicsEugenics, the study of improving the quality of the human race. This idea of improving the quality of the human race was very popular in the United States during the twentieth century. This study resulted in over 60,000 sterilizations in the United States alone. This concept started to die off in the late twentieth, early twenty-first century. Sir Francis Galton also known as the “Father of Eugenics” is responsible for the works ofeugenics all over the world. This outbreak of eugenics in the United States is said to be where Hitler got his ideas for wiping out the Jewish population in Germany during WWII.
Who?
Sir Francis Galton, the “Father of Eugenics” Galton was much more than the father of eugenics, Galton was also an anthropologist, geographer, inventor, meteorologist and much more. Galton got the idea for eugenics from his cousin Charles Darwin, Darwin is commonly known for his study of the survival of the fittest. Darwin wrote The Voyage of the Beagle on the Origin of Species evolution by natural selection, Galton took Darwin’s concept and applied it to the human race, but instead of natural selection Galton wanted people sterilized so he could get rid of the bad traits in a timely manor rather then letting the trait die off over time, concidering it could have taken many years of studying and analizing data.
Though Sir Francis Galton is...